The world’s ‘first’ grime instrumental has been found in a ‘90s Wolverine video game

It was written eight years before ‘Pulse X’.

If you thought Youngstar’s ‘Pulse X’ was the first grime beat, think again: SBTV has uncovered the story behind an accidental ‘grime’ instrumental created for a Wolverine video game back in 1994.

Brought to wider attention by Brixton producer Sir Pixalot last week, the track in question is an end of level boss theme from Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis platformer Wolverine: Adamantium Rage. Written by a producer called Dylan Beale, the track features all the hallmarks of early grime instrumentals: staccato strings, eski bleeps and square wave bass, recorded eight years before the first grime instrumentals.

SBTV’s Paul Gibbins managed to track down Beale, discovering that he was part of a ‘90s jungle duo called Rude & Deadly and worked in a Wood Green record shop that sold mainly techno and ragga.

Beale was hired by video game developer Akklaim to create music for the game, primarily using it as an opportunity to try out a West Coast hip-hop sound, but the faster boss tracks were more influenced by jungle.

He only had 200kb of sample space to work with due to the limitation of 16-bit game cartridges, resulting in a simlarly rough, digital sound to early grime tracks. “I basically sampled an orchestral stab and the bass, a hi-hat, snare, a few things like that, then I had to trim them down to minute sizes,” Beale says.

To demonstrate just how close the track is to a grime instrumental, Sir Pixalot produced his own dub by combining it with an vocal from J-Wing. Listen to that below and read the full interview at SBTV.